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Seriously, the average computer user doesn't even have a clue (nor do they care) what the "black box with white letters" (i.e., a MSDOS prompt window) is, what it is for, or why they need it.

They don't need it, which is why Windows is still popular. Buggy, annoying, and intrusive, but popular. In my experience, no amount of GUI work will help you use the native CLI.

On that note, it would be nice to see GUI and CLI apps use the same terminology, and the GUI even giving you hints on how to use the CLI - See TortoiseCVS for an excellent example.

* As a cvs client we use eclipse. Great product, but unfortunately it is Java, and therefore slow. Some of the developers use the editor of eclipse, others use external editors (vi baby :)

I'm involved with a project that is looking to develop an online community for technology oriented business customers.
Sell your idea to ebay, they might like you. (and the highest bidder wins!)


  If you could develop an online community to encourage collaboration and information sharing, what features would you want included?
That's easy, BitTorrent.


  How would you go about including features that are widely available in other places (weblogging, message boards, wiki) and generating buy-in from customers.
1) Visit homepages of said OSS
2) Get the sources
3) Right-Click Ctrl-V
4) Get headache integrating code from multiple projects^W4) Discover 'magical' missing libraries^W4) Consider rewriting everything with existing code as reference^W4) Give up^W4) ????
5) Profit!

>> Most of this is working on CVS stuff (do a checkout when you have a net connection, edit away, then commit when you get back). I know it can be done on Windows, but it's damn ugly.

Not really.
http://www.tortoisecvs.org/

If you want version control with cvs/svn under windows, I really recommend tortoisecvs/tortoisesvn. These handy clients integrate with the file manager, and are very user-friendly. It has been a while since I used it though.

http://www.tortoisecvs.org/
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

kind of reminds me of the story of the tortoise and the hare (or was it a turtle? I can never remember)

Yes, It's a tortoise, alright :)

What happens if the author removes all the links to the sourcecode though, are you legally entitled to ask for it?

Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

And there's always the wayback machine, the internet archive, etc ...

Look at CVS integration for example. It comes "free" with Eclipse, and is way better than what JBuilder offers.

i've personally tried a round of window cvs software include WinCvs and TurtoiseCVS and I've gotta say both were incomparable to Eclipse. I don't know why there hasn't been a easier CVS software, or maybe it's because I'm not looking hard enough. That said, even if I'm building software on Visual Studio or another IDE, I would still use Eclipse to refresh the directory and synchronize with the repository.

If anyone knows of any better free CVS software out there, I'm all ears!

For Windows developers, TortoiseCVS is highly recommended (as well as it's subversion equivalent, TortoiseSVN). For Java users, Eclipse has built in CVS support, which also works quite well.

It's not directly tied to the main CVS project, but what about TortoiseCVS? Of course, there's a subversion client of the same as well, TortoiseSVN.

Of course, even with the clients in a GUI form, it would still be nice to have a GUI tool for setting up and maintaining repositories as well.

WSH (a brand new Windows shell, sort-of available now) may be an option, but you can just as well download Cygwin as someone mentioned and just use the tools you're familiar with.

--(())

Disclosure: I had the pleasure of contributing a few modest lines of code to Tortoise, but believe me, it was way cool long before my meager changes made their way in.

What I really would love to see in Linux is something like TortoiseCVS. It integrates with the shell on Windows perfectly so you can see all the CVS information while browsing files. Before I found it, I had tried all sorts of GUI's for CVS, but I prefered the command line to them because they added no value. With tortoise it is just so easy to update, commit, or check diffs. When you commit it displays a nice box where you can check whether you want to check in a file. If you doubleclick on the filename it pulls up the diff with the repository version. Good stuff. I've even updated my sandbox from a File open dialog!! Gone are my days of forgetting to checkin files because it is obvious what is and is not in the repository. I heard that someone was working on a Nautilus plug in but that work seems to have reached a stand still. Oh well, maybe some day.

I'm fairly sure anybody who's tried SVN would never want to go back to CVS.

There are great CVS clients available that may ease your pain, though.
TortoiseCVS allows the user to commit files just by right-clicking on them. It's a great way to incite people to put their work under version control when they don't want to be bothered with learning and using more complicated software.
SmartCVS allows you to do the more complex CVS operations (pinning a revision, locking a file, etc...) quite easily. And it has a great interface, too.

1. PuTTY (secure client)
2. Cygwin (Linux emulation layer)
3. Gaim (instant messaging)
4. Scite (editor)
5. Firefox (browser)
6. TortoiseCVS (version control)
7. Spybot S&D (malware detector)
   
8. Privoxy (filtering web proxy)
9. Gimp (graphics)
   
10. CacheSentry (to fix IE's cache, in case I use it)

CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) is definitely the way to go.

Here are some links to get you started:

CVS On Windows

WinCVS GUI (very nice, uses Python undeneath)

Tortoise CVS

CVS NT Wiki

Component CVS for Windows

All of these are CVS for Windows tools. CVS is a great revision control system.

Yes, if you've used TortoiseCVS before, you might want to check out TortoiseSVN...

It integrates into Windows Explorer and allows you to do all the updates, commits, etc with right mouse clicks.

CVS on Windows has come a long way. For the CLI and server side check out CVSNT. The CVSNT guys have done work on smoothing out merges, and are looking into changing out RCS with a real DB - giving the possibility of scaling, meta-data handling and renaming. CVSNT has also been ported back into Linux.

For a kick-ass Windows client check out Tortoise CVS - it integrates into the explorer shell, shows you icon overlays for CVS status and allows right-click access to almost all CVS commands. Everyone in our office - even non-technical folk who freak at a CLI - use Tortoise to access CVS.

Its pretty amazing that no one has mentioned TortoiseCVS yet. If you are using CVS and are stuck on the windows platform, then Tortoise CVS is a god send.

I was recently doing something similar but lightweight, moving some code between Linux, OS X and Windows. The way that worked for me was to just use a central CVS repository then check out on to the relevant platforms. Three Windows "killer apps" in this were: cygwin, which doesn't suck nearly as much as it used to and has a way handy gui package installer; Tortoise CVS which is how CVS should be done; and Dev C++ which, if nothing else, is the most convenient way of getting gcc, free software Win32 API's and all the other dependencies up and going on Windows.

Worked for me :)

Dave

My approach to these things is to use a version control system. This is great for several reasons:

• It makes it really easy to work from different machines, which I do all the time. I've got my main desktop, my laptop, my firewall (which stores its configuration in version control), my dedicated server, plus my desktop and Linux machine at work. Oh and another firewall at my parents' house. Just "svn up" on a given machine and I've got the latest version of everything.
• I can see all the history of everything without ever wondering if "finalfinal02_B.*" is really final, to use your example. Whenever I make a change, I make a log message. Usually a pretty short one (for text-ish files, the diff is often self-explanatory) but it's enough. I can pull any version easily, see what changed between two, etc.
• I have lots and lots of data safety without much effort checking it in uploads it to my server, which is backed up every night to tape by my ISP. And I have working copies on many different machines, so at least the latest version of everything gets sent to another machine whenever I type "svn up" from it. It would take an act of God for me to lose my data.
• It's easy! I tend to use the commandline tools, but there are good GUIs available, too. At work we use TortoiseCVS, which integrates with the Windows shell. There's also TortoiseSVN (based on Subversion), which is more advanced but a little more bleeding edge.

I actually use Subversion for not only code but also configuration files, school projects, anything really. The only thing I can think of that it probably wouldn't be suitable for is huge media files, where the storage space of the repository history might be prohibitive. You mentioned archiving to DVD, so you might fall into this category, but most people should give this method a try.

He has no idea on how to use any technical tools, but the man cooks like there is no tomorrow. So don't ask him to wack away at HTML. Do not ask him to use CVS. Do not ask him to start a script. He wants something like a word processor to go in and edit his webpage.

We use CVS here and it works a treat. The guys change the web pages using Dreamweaver, then they just look at the Explorer window, see the files they've changed highlighted in red and then right-click and select "Commit" from the menu. Totally non-technical. Check out TortoiseCVS.

The CVS output is incredibly easy to parse. Each user can view online the pages he's changed, publish them to staging or live (simple cvs checkout in each case), view the history of the file, etc.

CVS is full of features such as being able to watch a file and react to triggers, though I've never had need of them yet. Installation is a doddle, there are plug-and-play online CVS viewers. Personally I would go to a dynamic db backed CMS, but if you are forced to stay with static HTML pages edited by hand then it's worth keeping CVS as an option.

Phillip.

That looks like a nice, standard mis-informed Slashdot post to me.

For Windows, there is CVS NT which works great. Then you can use Igloo for IDE integration. Or the even cooler Tortoise CVS for explorer integration (an easier to use source control tool I have yet to find).

OR, there is always Subversion if you don't want CVS. Subversion also has a Tortoise port.

Or, back in the closed source world, Perforce and I'm sure a handful of others.

As for a drag & drop UI for CVS, check out TortoiseCVS. It is the bomb. Integrates with Windows Explorer, so files get color-coded depending upon their check-in status. Right-click to commit changes. Totally seamless. Wish I had something like it under Linux.

WinCVS last time I tried it was annoying. Try TortoiseCVS.

tortoisecvs is my fave win client. A little limited functionality, but getting most of the basics and some frills in a right click in the file manager is very cool. MS SourceSafe is considerably more clunky.

While I agree on most things, WinCVS is certainly NOT the GUI you should be comparing to - TortoiseCVS is.

I have used SourceSafe, Perforce (very lightly), WinCVS, and Tortoise. Tortoise is above and beyond the rest. I still use the command line sometimes for intricate log grepping, but for everyday usage, Tortoise is simply amazing.

TortoiseCVS

Ugh, never call wincvs a nice client.

tortoise cvs if you're ever in a win environment.

if you're looking for a usable windows cvs-client, give tortoise-cvs a try!
it's an extension for the explorer and works imho quite nice.

Aonther excelent example of good OSS for windows is TortoiseCVS. From its site:

With TortoiseCVS you can directly check out modules, update, commit and see differences by right clicking on files and folders within Explorer

Is deletion of directories from the repository and it really ticks me off to no end. We have the same cvs repository for all of our companies documents and projects sources, so you can imagine how over the years it bloats and bloats and not being able to clean it out properly really sucks. For that matter a recursive removal of directories and contained files would pwn too... Oh and by the way, for you wind0ze users, install TortoiseCVS, it simply owns. //Miqlo

TortoiseCVS owns. Nuff said.

plus tortoise which has been working very well for myself and some co-workers.

TortoiseCVS

I don't understand what demands PHP has on version control that C++ and static HTML don't. I think CVS is just as good at PHP as it is at any other language...

To address your other concern there are several graphical CVS clients for windows. Most of them suck, but Tortoise CVS is my favorite of all the interfaces I've used to version control (which include integrated MS Visual Studio IDE support, Continuus, and Perforce), though of course it has the limitations inherent to CVS. (If you get Tortoise, I also recommend you look around at some alternat icon overlay packs so it looks nice)

Ok,

1. Install Cygwin. Yeah it's a dumb shitty-ass pathetic installer, and those who built it should be slain and their bodies fed to pigs, but hey, the tools are nice when you are done.

2. Install CVSNT. Easy install, take it all.

3. Do yourself a favor. Add those two to the path. Right click on My Computer, select Properties, click the Advanced Tab, and click on Envionment Variables. Under System Variables, find the PATH statement, and add in the following :
;c:\cygwin\bin;c:\Program Files\CVS for NT

4. While you are in there, add a new System Variable: CVS_RSH and set it to SSH.

Now, it's all set up and ready to use, as long as you know how to use CVS. (an entirely different question).

Now, if you like GUI tools at all I highly recommend the following :

TortoiseCVS -- This can EASILY be setup to use SSH. As a matter of fact, the builds past 0.49 have it all ready to go. Read the docs, and you'll see.

and WinCVS -- Which is the king daddy of CVS Gui Apps for Windows. A bit clunky for my needs.

and Jalindi Igloo -- A SCC API plugin for CVS. What's that? -- It's allows Windows Development tools to use CVS instead of Visual Source Safe (VSS=a plague!). Sweet, simple and kinda nice if you like that kinda thing.

--
Wuff

If you want a graphical shell for CVS under Windows, I have heard good things about TortoiseCVS. I have no personal experience with TortoiseCVS however, so whether it is actually better I really cannot say.

Best thing is of course if you try 'em both out and see for yourself.